


color

by Radio Rascal (Vagrants)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Autobots aren't good, Decepticons aren't all bad, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Torture, Pre-Canon, Quintessons kinda show up, basically a bit of backstory for Swindle, brief mention of Megatron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 13:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20426441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrants/pseuds/Radio%20Rascal
Summary: Swindle's opinion on his optics, before and after he got used to them.





	color

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzystars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzystars/gifts).

> this was written for a server friend because they beat me in a game! it's based off their theory about purple optics. hope u like it

Crossing into Quintesson territory was dangerous and stupid and something every bot knew to avoid, but it was Swindle’s only choice as he fled his pursuers. He pushed his ship to its limits, pressing the throttle stick as far as it would go. His optics were fixed on the radar screen on the control panel, watching the blinking dots of the other ships slow down.

If he hadn’t turned towards the Co-Prosperity Sphere, they would have overtaken him within minutes, but now they were backing off. From their perspective, the chase was over, because no Autobot dared venture into Quintesson territory; but they’d might as well have won, since Swindle was now considered as good as dead.

It wasn’t Swindle’s first choice. He had no other options besides going back to the stockades, and truth be told, that was no better than whatever fate the Quintessons might have for him. He knew what the stockades did to people; they might have been worse. Only a lucky few escaped with their minds intact and he was one of them. This wasn’t his first choice, and he was likely dead anyway, but this path offered some semblance of hope.

Once the other ships were completely off his radar, he relaxed. He heaved a sigh and released the throttle, letting it return to a neutral position. His ship stopped accelerating and coasted through the foreign starscape. If it weren’t for his general situation, he might have been able to enjoy the sight.

Very few Cybertronians had ever been to this sector of the galaxy, and not in recent millennia. His kind didn’t talk much to their celestial neighbors, especially with the war going on, but they were supposedly hostile and unsympathetic to anyone unlucky enough to wander across their borders.

Swindle had been caught playing both sides of the war, acquiring Autobot weapons and selling them to Decepticons. The greatest lawyer in the universe couldn’t have saved him, but from what he heard, the Quintessons weren’t lawyers but businessmen. If anything could save him, it would be his skills as a salesbot. That’s what he was counting on if a confrontation arose.

He figured Quintessons probably thought Cybertronians looked ugly and unappealing regardless, but he forced himself out of the captain seat so he could examine himself and clean up. While escaping from the stockades, he’d picked up a few souvenirs and they were starting to ache. He was leaking oil, too, but not much and not from anywhere vital, or so he hoped. Doing business would be difficult if he had internal bleeding.

The ship wasn’t large. The only other rooms were the engine room and the berthroom, both attached to the cockpit; there wasn’t even a wash rack. If he required extensive repairs, they would just have to wait. He barely knew first aid as it was, and wasn’t going to try to jerry-rig something out of whatever he found lying around.

He entered the berthoom. It was almost as cramped and pitiful as his old, well-remembered cell, but compared to that hole it was a luxury hotel. The first aid kit hung on the wall near a dingy, cracked mirror, which was the only fixture in the room besides the thin berth itself. He stepped up to it.

Swindle kept his head down, first examining the dents and scratches on his chest and shoulders. His glass windows were cracked, and a few wires were exposed. Oil stained the armor around the deeper wounds. A badly crushed section had dead pigments, and his spark jumped at the sight of it. The death didn’t seem to be spreading, though, so he might just need a weld. Anything more extensive than that and he couldn’t fix it.

He couldn’t avoid his face forever. Flinchingly, Swindle raised his head and looked himself in the optics. It hurt to see that foreign purple color—it was ugly, it was  _ wrong _ , and it reminded him of what they’d done to him and everything he’d now lost. It was irreversible. He would always look like this, branded as one who got caught, bearing this scar no matter how well he repaired himself.

Pulling his attention away from his optics, he decided to get started on those repairs before he inevitably had to go back to the cockpit. The kit attached to the wall contained a small, flimsy-looking torch and tiny interface patches that would barely wrap around a digit. He frowned. This was such a damn cheap ship.

What did he know? Maybe looking like a piece of scrap would garner him sympathy, or at least make him less threatening.

He turned away from the mirror and settled on the berth. The middle sagged under his weight and he jumped up, glancing down at it with concern. He shifted closer to the end, where the leg offered more support, and sat with himself in abject misery.

His shell hurt more by the second, now that he was relatively calm and could focus on things like pain. If the guards had captured him, he would be in an even worse state than this, and he told himself that in hopes the perspective would soothe his aches. It didn’t do much besides make him more resentful.

Stockades! Like he was  _ that _ dangerous! All he did was sell to the wrong robots. He didn’t fight in the war and didn’t even have weapons on his shell, yet the Autobots treated him like he was a rogue soldier who tried to assassinate the Magnus. If he’d remained with them he knew he would have been offlined...it was only a question of whether it would have been  _ official _ or not.

Swindle had no weapons on his shell, but he knew he’d need some soon, if he survived the Quintessons. He wanted them  _ now _ to help with that. There was nothing in here that could help him defend himself, so he was relying on his wits, charisma, and information that was probably, at best, half-true.

An alarm blared from the cockpit, snapping him from his thoughts. He ran in and froze, his spark constricting in its chamber.

Just as he expected, a Quintesson ship had found him quite quickly. It’d jumped to him, the freshly-discharged transwarp energy creating a glowing cloud around the vessel. It was small, but bigger than his ship, and he thought some of the forward-facing structures might be weapons. He wasn’t familiar with the finer details of their construction, he just knew who created it.

Shakily he lowered himself into the captain’s seat. He didn’t have the fuel to escape them—they were approaching fast and would overtake his speed in minutes. All he could do was watch and wait for them to make a move.

To his surprise, they initiated a greeting like this was a typical encounter for them. He’d expected them to be more rude, and in his confusion he replied without thinking. He pressed the button that would establish a connection with them, and in one of the more surreal moments of his life, Swindle began conversing with the Quintessons.

* * *

New Kaon never changed between his visits. It was a stagnant, sad little place, and Swindle didn’t like it whatsoever; he came here to do business with the old warmonger, always complimented the colony to Megatron’s face, and got out as soon as all transactions were paid. Lingering always made him feel like he was going to catch something off the locals, be it a new disease or depression.

He had plenty to offer this time. He’d acquired some new Autobot weaponry that looked awfully interesting. The Autobots themselves had shown up during his meeting with his supplier, though, and he’d come away a bit scuffed. It was nothing he couldn’t handle, and he’d barely paid attention to it while he was traveling. Now, however, it was on his mind.

While his ship’s autopilot was handling the landing procedure, he got up to tend to himself. Megatron didn’t care about other cons’ appearances as long as they weren’t offensive to the senses, but Swindle liked to look his best for any business meeting, and it was a good habit to keep.

His current vessel was a pretty good size and had all the rooms a robot might need. Sometimes, when he was on his way to New Kaon, he would remember that awful, cramped skiff and feel relieved, because from that point, his life had consistently ticked upward.

Though he knew he’d been scared of the Quintessons at the time, he was so friendly with them now that he couldn’t believe it. They were familiar business partners with Decepticons, and had helped him by pointing him in the direction of the nearest Decepticon base, where he’d been patched up and received a Decepticon badge. Though many didn’t trust him, he’d had a surprisingly smooth transition into Decepticon life, and continued dealing weapons to them as well as trading with his unexpected rescuers.

He entered the small repair bay near the aft of the ship and sat on a low table in the center of the room. There was a floor-length mirror in front of him that allowed him to see more of his shell while he welded and patched his wounds.

It didn’t take long; once he was finished he stood and approached the mirror to better examine his paint and armor. He wasn’t as crisp as he wanted to be, so he made a note to get a touch-up sometime soon—not here. With everything else that had been on his mind recently, he couldn’t help fixating on his optics for a moment.

Even the Decepticon code in the badge couldn’t override what the Autobots had done. He was truly stuck with his current color, but as time passed he’d grown used to it, and then he grew to like it. What was once a mark of shame became almost one of pride. He was living proof that a bot could betray the Commonwealth,  _ survive _ , and enjoy life on the outside; not only did he leave the Commonwealth, but he continued to be their problem. Any Autobot that looked at him knew his story at a glance, and that was fine with him, if it made them think—if it made them squirm, even a little bit.

Swindle smirked. Purple looked  _ good _ on him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! this was my first time writing Swindle, a character i typically don't think about, so i hope i portrayed him fine. he's actually really interesting, but i have a one-track mind so i never considered him until now. i was glad to write this.


End file.
